Minimalist Monochrome

[Mike Buckley]

Some will perhaps see this as an abstract, others perhaps as the subject for what it is. Feel free to perceive it as seems best to you, as that is unimportant to me.

For those who are interested, the subject is placed on black acrylic. There is one light source shining directly from behind the subject toward the camera through white acrylic that is 40% translucent (if I remember that detail correctly).

C&C is encouraged though I have nothing to ask.

[Brownbear]

It's a beautiful shot... Somehow you make glass just gorgeous.. I love the composition, the light, the clarity and the way the photo draws my eye to the center of the glass.

[Downrigger]

Awfully interesting, and good. The sum of the imperfect components (organic variation in line thickness, wavering arcs, eccentric vertical orientation) being quite perfect nonetheless.

Want to drop a hint as to how you handled color?

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Christina and Mark!

Want to drop a hint as to how you handled color?

There are two ways that I would normally do this. Both methods are used after converting to black-and-white and making all the necessary adjustments. In other words, this is the last step in my workflow other than straightening and cropping.

Method #1
Select a color using an eye dropper and add it to the entire photo using whatever blending mode and opacity achieves the desired outcome. As an example, my Sepia preset uses a particular reddish brown color (containing more red than in the above photo) in Screen mode that is usually added at about 70% opacity.

Method #2
Individually adjust the curve of each RGB channel to achieve the desired toning. Then select the opacity of the adjustment to achieve the desired degree of toning. The screenshot shown below is the set of curves that was used for the above photo.

[Downrigger]

Wow. Thanks.

[Karm Redland]

Mike, just great. I agree with your minimalist title.

Karm